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ElCheapo

what has emulation got to do with not paying for the games?

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Oh right. Legal distinction

Why would Valve advertise you could emulate if not for pirating games?

To play the wide range of homebrew switch software created by the vast homebrew community the switch has, of course.

https://switchbrew.org/wiki/Homebrew_Applications

Yeah, no one really believes that.

In the same way that nobody torrents linux isos? Just because it's less popular than other uses doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

No, in the way that advertising that your product can play a few homebrew games when it already can play thousands of Steam games makes no sense. It's obviously to hint at playing Nintendo titles.

Torrenting is a pretty standard, official, way of distributing Linux ISOs. Linux' license also doesn't really stop anyone from doing so, as it very much wants its users to share it with others (GPL v2, see the 4 freedoms of the FSF). There could be problems distributing e.g. Red Hat-owned stuff (trademarks, copyrighted things, non-FOSS software and such) without permission, but Linux itself is completely legal to share.

Torrenting also isn't illegal by itself or a direct link to pirating, it is just a very common way of sharing pirated data.

Emulation and virtualisation is a pretty standard, official, way of running software on other devices, where the software licence also doesn't stop anyone from doing so.

Emulating also isn't illegal by itself of a direct link to pirating, it is just a very common way of playing pirated games.

I assume you are probably trying to make fun of the comment or playing devil's advocate or something, but you are correct. The illegal part comes when you try to share things you have no rights to share, such as the ROMs or BIOS.

Just as you can go to to arch linux' web page and download through their recommended method (torrent), you can go play old PS1 games on the PSClassic (based on the PCSX emulator), or play GB/GBC games on your 3DS Virtual Console (in house nintendo-made emulator afaik, correct me if I'm wrong).

I interpreted the comment as a comparison between torrenting and emulation, "but torrenting isn't illegal but is used for illegal things" and thought it was implying the opposite for emulation, i.e that emulation was illegal.

I was making fun of that comment to point out the same is true of emulation. However I obviously misinterpreted the initial comment since you're clearly aware emulation itself is legal. Sorry.

Just like no one believes stores selling "decorative glass vases" that look like bongs. But it doesn't matter, because it's still legal itself.

Why does that matter? It's like torrents and Linux distributions, perfectly legal, it's not the software developers intent that makes the file sharing be legal or not, it's the users usage of such software.

It's also worth noting that afaik dumping carts you own and playing them on an emulator is fine too. As long as you don't redistribute them.

1. Then you don't have to carry a steam deck and a switch.

2. This way you can buy physical copies of games, keeping full control and the ability to resell them, while also carrying your current game library on an SD card.

Edit: I forgot modding! That's a huge use of emulation.

So you don't have to travel with both your Switch and your Steamdeck. So you can play games at higher resolution and fps than the Switch. So people can make playthough and tips/tricks videos of Switch games without needing to buy a capture card. So you can use game mods without jailbreaking your switch.

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